MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Teardown

Teardown

We got our hands on Apple's newest MacBook Pro 15" on February 24, 2011. This is Apple's first laptop to sport a quad-core processor, and also adds a brand-new I/O technology with a Thunderbolt port. Follow us on Twitter to get all the latest updates.

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We got our hands on Apple's latest Unibody laptop. This is Apple's first portable to sport a quad-core processor: Intel's Core i7.

This machine includes Thunderbolt, a new I/O connection that combines PCI Express and DisplayPort into a single connector.

Thunderbolt claims to provide 10 Gbps throughput for both input and output. It appears that both PCI Express and DisplayPort receive their own 10 Gbps data channel. That's nice, as you don't want your display competing with your external hard drive for bandwidth.

You can chain up to 6 Thunderbolt devices including up to 2 HD displays. That's not a problem today as we're not even aware of 6 products that support Thunderbolt yet. If the connection becomes widespread, the 6 device limit might be a problem for some people.

In comparison, FireWire supports up to 63 devices in a daisy-chain, while USB does not support daisy-chaining.

The lower case is secured by ten Phillips #00 screws. There are no pentalobe screws since Apple still considers the RAM and hard drive to be user-replaceable. However, like the machine this replaces, the battery is not user-replaceable (at least according to Apple).

The RAM in this machine is PC3-10600 RAM. That's the same RAM used in the 2010 revision of the 21.5" and 27" iMacs, but different from earlier Apple laptops. PC3-10600 RAM is backwards compatible with the PC3-8500 RAM in older MacBook Pro Unibody machines, but you can't use older PC3-8500 RAM in this machine.

This machine boasts a 77.5 Watt-hour battery. That's the same capacity as the previous revision, but the reported battery life has gone from 8-9 hours to 7 hours. Has performance really decreased, or is Apple being more realistic with their estimates? We don't have 7 hours to wait and find out, so we'll have to leave that investigation to someone with a fully-assembled unit.

Just like the previous revision, the battery is secured by Tri-Wing screws.

After removing a soldered EMI shield, we find 802.11n wireless connectivity provided by a Broadcom BCM4331 "Single-Chip 802.11n Dual-Band 3x3 Wireless Solution." Bluetooth 3.0 support is handled by a BCM2070 in a separate, shielded section of the board.

According to Broadcom, the BCM4331 chip provides "three transmitting and three receiving streams of data in both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Increased number of streams and antennas results in faster speeds, longer range, fewer dropped connections, and better overall wireless coverage."

The BCM2070 Bluetooth controller is described as follows on the Broadcom site: "The Broadcom BCM2070 is a monolithic, single-chip, stand-alone baseband processor with a high performance integrated 2.4-GHz RF transceiver. It is fully compliant with Bluetooth 3.0 and all prior standard features...using advanced 65-nm LP CMOS technology,"

The wireless card bracket is aluminum, rather than the plastic in previous revisions. Perhaps this change was made for thermal reasons, as a visible pink thermal pad is used to transfer heat from the board to its aluminum bracket.

Like most 15" Unibody laptops, there are two fans. To make sure things stay cool, there's a plethora of temperature sensors scattered throughout the machine, including near the trackpad, in the battery, and on the logic board.

The main board lifts out along with the heat sink still attached. This is a nice feature, as this way you have to remove the heat sink and reapply thermal paste only if you're completely replacing the logic board.

This machine features not only the large primary heat sink, but also two smaller heat sinks.

Holy thermal paste! Time will tell if the gobs of thermal paste applied to the CPU and GPU will cause overheating issues down the road.

The Mid 2010 15" Unibody was equipped with only one large heat sink to cool just the CPU and GPU. Also for that revision, the graphics switching chip seen in the second image was present, but didn't receive a heat sink.

The chip under the heat sink in the third image is a new chip that is most likely the Thunderbolt controller.

Paul - thanks for the heads up on this. So I did some digging - the best assurance I can find is on http://www.macworld.com/article/158134/2... : "Earlier this year, Intel discovered problems in the chipset of Sandy Bridge processors that were shipping, but Apple vice president of worldwide Mac hardware marketing David Moody told Macworld that the company was using the latest updated versions, which corrected the flaw."

I covered the "Sandy Bridge bug" issue in my comment on Step 12 of this guide yesterday. The PCH chip in the machine ifixit performed the teardown on is a B3 stepping chip without the 3Gbps SATA bug. For full technical details of the S-Spec codes for fixed B3 stepping chips see this Intel product change notification - http://ghz.gr/sites/default/files/pcn110...

PRODUCT UPDATE February 24, 2011: The MCE OptiBay for Unibody MacBook Pro (above) has been certified to be fully compatible with the new MacBook Pro 13", 15", and 17" (Early 2011) models just released today by Apple.

There could be more clarity around the wireless card. It does not have an "Extra" antenna for 802.11, that J3 antenna is hooked into the BCM2070 Bluetooth chip at the bottom of that wireless board, so it's a bluetooth antenna.

Apple is still ahead of the game with a 3x3:3 radio, as most APs (Even Cisco enterprise APs) do not support 3 spatial streams today. In fact, most Cisco APs are 3x2:2 (3 antennas, 2 transmit chains, 2 spatial streams). Aruba APs are mostly 3x3:2 (3 antennas, 3 transmit chains, but still only 2 spatial streams). Mobile phones with 802.11n today are usually 1 spatial stream and 1 antenna (Which is why they max at a 65mbps data rate). Most laptops are 2 spatial stream (Max at 150mb data rate on 2.4ghz, or 300mb on 5ghz (when 40mhz wide channels are enabled). Apple is claiming 450 mb data rates because in a 40mhz channel 5ghz situation, they can use a 3rd spatial stream. Most APs don't yet support this, but the AIrport Extreme from Apple does.

Might be nice to get close-ups of the PCH and hard drive, in light of the Sandy Bridge bug. Initial reports are that the HD is connected to an SATA-III port and should therefore be unaffected... but it would be nice to know the exact HD model regardless for those considering upgrading it.

It's tough to say for sure (because we haven't tested it). What I do know is that this machine has four antenna connectors while the Mid 2010 has three, and the camera cables connect in slightly different locations between the two machines.

Is it possible to remove the Processor? I have burnt my logic board, but the Processor is not damaged, so can I move it to another computer. Seems like a waste to throw away a working quad core processor.

Regarding Thunderbolt: separate channels are just a simple, constant bandwidth allocation. It's not always best. Best is making all the bandwidth available as needed via intelligent arbitration. USB tries to do this with its different endpoint types (bulk, interrupt, isochronous, and control) and bandwidth negotiation for isochronous streams. Of course, there is overhead associated with this.

The six device limit is not yet clear. Intel claims that Thunderbolt supports a switched architecture with multiple topologies. The six device limit may only apply to daisy chains. However, I can't (as of now) find more details on this.

I tried to edit Step 7 to point out the BCM2070 Bluetooth chip and how 3 antennas are for wifi while the forth is for Bluetooth, but the edit was apparently denied without explanation. It seems complete and correct information is not desired here.

The Intel BD82HM65 Platform Controller Hub is not just a "graphics switching chip". It is an I/O hub, where all the various I/O interfaces come together before going to the CPU and memory. This includes PCIe, USB 2.0, SATA, ethernet, HD audio, and various other interfaces as well as the display outputs.

Question on the thermal paste. Since the gobs of thermal paste applied to the CPU and GPU will cause overheating issues down the road, is it advisable for us to redo the thermal paste to avoid issues in the future especially overheating? Guess this probably will void the warranty. Any advice anyone?

Why would this be a problem? As long as the thermal conducting surfaces are covered, simply installing the heatsink will squish out any excess while not set; leaving the required thickness and coverage to perform.

Sure; it's less pretty, but do you see it every day? And overspill onto the green varnished parts of the chip(s) isn't going to have any effect.

Better people leave well alone than cause mass panic of the less capable ripping off heatsinks, sandpapering chips, and under applying paste to a single corner, thinking this will ensure optimum performance or something...

I should probably also have said; just b'cos one has a less-than-aesthetically-pleasing goo application doesn't mean they all have. I'm sure there's temperature monitoring tools that can help you see if there's any deficiency, without the need to pop the covers.

Your teardown is of a HDD based machine. If I bought a SSD 128gb & added HDD via MCE Optibay, I'd seek to move the SDD into the OptiBay, because http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/84938-d... "regular hdd slot has the sudden motion sensor which hdds should have and the optical bay doesn't have the sudden motion sensor which for an ssd doesn't matter anyway"

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Moti... , the MacBook Pro has in the past featured a Kionix three-axis accelerometer chip, (KXM52-1050), for protecting its HDD. That said, I couldn't see a KXM chip on the teardown photos (but didn't find them on past models either.)

My conclusion / assumption on this is that the SSD models are all build-to-order vs, ready made for the HDDs. The drive is considered user replaceable - such that users can swap either HDD for SSD or (less likely) SSD for HDD - meaning the motherboards must be identical and include the Sudden Motion Sensor.

I suppose that shifting the SSD to the OptiBay and adding a HDD would necessitate changing a PRAM / NVRAM setting.

I've an outstanding request with MCE Technologies asking them to verify http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?st... - they've emailed to say they will know within a few days their official opinions. That link shows people have already fitted exiting OptiBay models.

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